AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You were adorable.”
“Shut up and watch,” she mumbled through a small smile. “I think my mom’s taking this.”
The boy played with a chunk of wood that was thicker than his arm. It must’ve been hollow though, because he swooped it easily through the air with his little hand.
“Prepare for landing,” he was rattling excitedly, “Colony shipAhtoniahas detected a habitable planet. Pshhh pshh.”
He made hissing sounds as he steadied the stick in his hand and lowered it to the floor for a landing approach.
But before colony shipAhtoniacould touch down to the habitable carpet, Kaia swooped in with a stick of her own, smaller and faster, with a pointed end that knocked her brother’s hand out of the way.
“Caw! Caw!” she screeched. “Turns out the world has pterodactyls on it! Colony shipAhtonia, abort, abort!”
Ahton squealed with delight as their hands sailed around in a flurry, his ship maneuvering to avoid the attacking dinosaurs until the siblings were crawling all around the floor in fits of laughter. A woman’s laugh came from the camera as it was lowered and the footage ended.
“That was disgustingly cute.” Orion snaked an arm around Kaia’s shoulder and pulled her into his side.
“It was not!” She punched him playfully. “It was a serious mission.”
A little quieter, she added, “Ahton loved dreaming about New Earth.”
“He thought it would happen?”
“Said when a colony ship found New Earth one day, they’d come back and save everyone and bring them there, and there’d be no poor people on Artega Seven anymore,” Kaia said with a wry chuckle.
“Kaia, that’s perfect. Now you get to make it happen.”
“What do you mean?”
He stared at her. She could be slow on the uptake sometimes, but damn, had she not considered everything that came withmarryinghim?
“You’re here. It may not be X1s—hell, maybe it will be—but even if not, the sole purpose of this colony is to find New Earth.”
“And coming back for the others? That part of the plan?”
“We canmakeit the plan.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Orion. We both know even if we find something, there's no wayColossalis returning to help the poor little residents of Artega Seven, or any other place. Every colony’s out for themselves.”
Orion touched her chin, guiding her to look at him. “We’re about to run this whole place, Kaia. Not saying it’ll be easy. Shit, we need to find the fucking thing first. But once we do, we can do whatever the hell we want.”
Her brows knotted together as she sat up fast, squaring her shoulders at him. “You have to promise.”
“That we’ll come back for others?”
“Thatyou’llcome back. No matter what happens to me, you come back. You have to swear it.”
“What do you think could possibly happen to you?”
“Promise,” she demanded.
She stared at him, poised with an intensity he’d rarely seen.
“All right. I promise.”
He gave her what she needed, and just like that, the tension was gone. She smiled and settled on her side with her back to him. Orion closed his eyes, dimming the lights.
A new weight settled over him. The kind he’d been familiar with and should want to dump immediately—the load of yet another commitment. This one he could easily discard. Empty words for a silly request. But something about it felt different this time. It settled inside him with an ease he’d never felt with any commitment before. Flowed into his lungs as he breathed in her scent beside him. As he drifted off underneath it, Orion decided that this weight would be one he’d gladly carry for her.
